Musings

Having been a hard core political junkie most of my life (an affliction that is diminishing with time and distance from Mordor), one of my favorite political figures of modern times was Meldrim Thomson. He was the crusty governor of New Hampshire who was in office while I matriculated as a PolySci/EconHist student during my first attempt to get through college. Thomson was, by all accounts, a congenial man who was either principled or retrograde depending, I suppose, on whether or not you shared his perspective on things. There was a tale circulating during his career that in response to an accusation that his “attitudes were from the 19th century” he retorted that the critic was two centuries too late. I admired that about him.

Flash forward to a couple weeks ago. We were in Costco with our daughter who has been urging us to join modernity for some while now, and it was time to discard our vintage flip-phones and get “smart” phones. Given our desire for a navigating device to travel with us and a tool that could actually read text messages from iPhones (our vintage phones would not), we finally relented. It was difficult as there was some residual emotional attachment to the old technology. Besides, it worked well on the wagon train and still made phone calls when we wanted, more or less.

So now we are part of Modernity, an uncomfortable position given how much of it I am at war with. But, both daughters assured us that it would revolutionize our lives, and, “Besides Daddy, you can Instagram and Tweet!” My interest in becoming a twit is in the negative integer range, but all my woodworking friends tell me that I “have to Instagram.”

We’ll see about that.

But for now, there is no communication technology revolution in my life. I had no cell service at the cabin or barn before, I still have no cell service. And now I guess I have to learn about this Instagram thing.

Harumpf.

Share this:

7 Comments on The Spirit of Meldrim Thomson

Hold on a second. Didn’t I notice banners, at the end of today’s column, for Facebook, Twitter and G+? None of which I use nor intend to. Nor Instagram. And I’ve owned an iPhone for two years. (TSN for hockey updates.) Looks like a little bit of Mordor lurking behind your stone wall. Smeagol is Kilroy. And he’s here.

I am with you. I answer a phone only when I want to, now. I pay a hundred a year for a working cell phone–it flips and only cost $10– in which the pending messages (junk) and minutes keep growing. Last week, to get it out of my way I put it in the car. Yesterday, I turned it off because the thing kept chirping and distracting me.

I feel your pain being sort of old school myself.
Just because you get a smart phone, there is no need to join Instagram or Facebook etc.
The phone will work well without those apps installed.
By far the biggest issue with modern phones compared to my old dumb phone is that those new ones need to be recharged once every 24 hours!
My old phone could easily go two weeks without being charged, bur that is definitely a thing of the past now.